Family archives
Bring a box of creased, faded prints of parents and grandparents back to something you can share with relatives or print again for the wall.
One scan in · A repaired print out · No Photoshop needed
Old Photo Restoration
Upload one scan of a damaged print and repair it free online — creases, scratches, tears and fading gone, every face left exactly as it was.
Repairs damage, not just blurThe people stay exactly the sameFree online, no software to learn
Before / after
One damaged scan, one repaired print
A real repair run on this page’s model — a 1960s family snapshot with a deep crease, scratches, torn corners and heavy yellowing. Drag the divider and watch what does not move: four faces, four poses, the house, the path. Only the damage goes. Every output is AI-generated, so your result varies with your scan and the damage on it — treat this as a guide to what the tool can do, not a fixed result you will get back exactly.
Drag to compare before and after
AI repair tool
What is AI old photo restoration?
This is different from sharpening. A blurry digital snapshot needs detail invented; a damaged print already has the picture, it just has a crease across the middle, white scratch lines, chipped corners, brown foxing stains, and the yellow-orange cast that decades of light left behind. Those come off. The picture itself is left completely alone.
Image tool
Traditionally the work meant hours in Photoshop with the clone-stamp and healing brush, layer by layer, or paying a retoucher forty dollars and waiting a week per image. Here you upload the scan, the model reads which marks are damage and which are the photograph, and it rebuilds only the damaged parts in one pass.
On Kavel it runs on the Nano Banana image model, so a repaired print comes back in a single generation. Faces, poses, clothing and composition are left untouched, so what you get is the same moment, undamaged.
Creative engine
How the repair comes together
Upload a scan, confirm what needs repairing, choose the format and resolution, and the credit estimate updates before you generate.
1 scan
Scan in
Damage removed
What changes
Faces kept
What doesn't
Physical damage, not softness
Creases, scratches, tears, dust, foxing stains and missing emulsion are the target. Softness is a different problem with a different fix, and a tool that treats them as the same thing tends to sharpen the damage along with the picture.
Tone and contrast recovered
The yellow-brown cast of an aged print is corrected back toward natural skin tones and contrast is recovered in faded areas. That is usually the change families notice first, because it is what makes a face look alive again.
Leaves faces, poses, clothing and composition untouched, so the repaired print is the same moment, undamaged. Old photo damage and softness are different problems: the HD photo converter sharpens a picture that is intact but blurry, and the model comparison shows how the two engines behind old photo work differ on one prompt.
How to use
Repair a damaged print in three steps
From a creased scan to a clean print, with the cost shown before you commit.
Scan or photograph the print
Lay the print flat under even light and capture the whole frame. A straight, evenly lit scan gives the model the most of the original to work from — avoid angled phone shots with glare across the surface.
Say what needs repairing
Name the damage you can see — a crease down the centre, water stains in one corner, a missing edge, colour that has gone orange. Specific direction repairs more than a generic request.
Check credits and generate
Confirm the estimate, generate the repair, and download at full resolution for printing. If a run fails it is refunded (unless it broke the content policy), so you only spend credits on the repairs that actually come back.
Who it's for
Who repairs an old print
Family archives, house clearances, a single surviving photo of someone.
A memorial or anniversary
Repair the one surviving picture of someone who has passed, so the version the family keeps is not the damaged one.
Genealogy and local history
Clean up scans for a family tree, a heritage project, or an archive where the damage is getting in the way of the record.
Answers
Photo repair FAQ
Common questions about repairing damaged and faded prints with Kavel.
No, and the difference matters. Sharpening invents detail that a soft digital file never captured. This repairs damage on a print that was fine when it was taken — creases, scratches, tears, stains, fading. If your scan is undamaged but soft or low-resolution, use the HD photo converter instead; it is built for that job.
It should not, and that is the rule the tool works to. Faces, expressions, poses, clothing and background are left as they are; only the damage is rebuilt. If a repair does come back with a face that looks subtly different, retry and say explicitly to keep the faces unchanged — a failed or unwanted run takes seconds to redo.
No. This runs entirely in the browser with free credits to start, so there is no clone-stamp work, no layer masks and nothing to install. That is the main reason people arrive here after searching for a Photoshop tutorial — the manual method works, it just takes hours per image.
Creases, scratches, dust, foxing, torn corners, water stains and heavy colour fading all repair well. Where a large area of the picture is physically missing — a face torn away entirely — the model has to invent what was there, and inventing a face is exactly what you do not want. Crop to what survives instead.
Repair and colourisation are separate jobs. This tool restores what the print originally held, including recovering colour that has faded away. Adding colour that was never captured is a different request and a different result; ask for it explicitly if that is what you want.
Flat, square to the camera or scanner, evenly lit, and framed to include the whole print including its border. Glare across the surface and a steep angle both cost the model information it cannot recover. A flatbed scan beats a phone photo, but a careful phone photo works.
The credit estimate appears before you generate and updates with the format and resolution you pick, so you always see the cost first. Failed runs are refunded automatically (unless it broke the content policy). New accounts start with free credits, which is enough to repair a print and judge the result before spending anything.
Yes — reprinting for a frame or a family album is one of the most common uses. Generate at the highest resolution available so the file holds up at print size, and keep your original scan; the repair is a new file, not a replacement for the archive copy.
Kavel pricing — you pay per generation, never per seat
Credits are shared across everything Kavel runs. You see the cost before each run, and a failed job is never charged.
50% OFFYour first purchase is half price
No sign-upIncl. taxStart generating
Free
Start generating before you pay anything, and keep earning credits every day you come back. No card, no account needed.
$0
What's included
- 15 credits before you sign up
- +40 when you create an account
- +100 a week from daily check-ins
- = 488 a month — 97 images or 12 videos
- No card, no account
- Free engine every day Grok Imagine
- Photo editing Nano Banana 2 Lite
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
Start hereIncl. tax
Starter
A monthly balance that keeps a steady run of clips and images going — on every model Kavel carries.
$59.80
The whole shelf is open from day one.$29.90 / month
Need more each month?1x · $29.90
Total: 3,150 credits per month
≈ 630 images or 78 videos
What's included
- 3,150 credits per month
- Up to 630 images or 78 videos Grok Imagine Nano Banana
- Clean downloads, no watermark
- Every model unlocked Veo 3.1 Seedance Nano Banana
- Cost shown before you generate
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
PopularPopular
Creator
For regularly making Kavel drafts, final clips, and the image assets that go with them.
$119.80
The best pick if you create on a regular basis.$59.90 / month
Need more each month?1x · $59.90
Total: 7,200 credits per month
≈ 1,440 images or 180 videos
What's included
- 7,200 credits per month
- Up to 1,440 images or 180 videos Grok Imagine Nano Banana
- Clean downloads, no watermark
- Every model unlocked Veo 3.1 Seedance 2 Nano Banana 2
- No shared queue
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
ScaleIncl. tax
Studio
For more output, high-resolution testing, and larger batches.
$199.80
Ideal when several campaigns share one pool.$99.90 / month
Need more each month?1x · $99.90
Total: 13,200 credits per month
≈ 2,640 images or 330 videos
What's included
- 13,200 credits per month
- Up to 2,640 images or 330 videos Grok Imagine Nano Banana
- Clean downloads, no watermark
- Every model unlocked Seedance 2.5 Kling 3.0 Veo 3.1
- No shared queue
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
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Payments are processed by Stripe over an encrypted checkout. Your card details are handled by Stripe and are never stored by Kavel.
Not sure which to choose? Contact us
Charges appear as “KAVEL AI” on your card statement. You can cancel any time from Settings → Billing; cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you already paid for. Operator details, the full model list, and the refund window are on the about page.
More tools
Other rescues for damaged photos
Other ways to fix and finish a picture, and the model behind the edit.
Repair your old photo
The creases and stains come off; the faces are left exactly as they were. That second part is the one to check.